how consistent should a particular load be?

[OldSwamper]

i shot my SBEII yesterday: 26" barrel, RR .655 choke, 3.5" mag blends, at 40 yds.  it was 65 degrees but very windy (blew the target out of my hand several times, so i know it was not ideal conditions, but i was anxious to shoot some)

Shot 1: 175 pellets in 10" circle, but low (sight adjusted)
Shot 2: 210 pellets, but still low (pattern came up but just not enough, another adjustment)
Shot 3: 147 pellets, but dead on......

that seems very inconsistent numbers wise.  what do you guys think?  i deep cleaned the barrel a few months ago and the gun only had about 6 or 8 shots through it before yesterday

[OldSwamper]

sorry, i have no pics so i'll move this to the general shooting thread....

[briton]

Im not sure exactly how consistent a pattern should be but i can tell you one thing, there are ALOT of misshapen and deformed pellets in the magblends that cause inconsistencies. I have shot them for years and every bird i have killed has had shot removed that resembled "sticks and snowmen" (as another member on here put it). I would figure if you pay that much for a shell they should at least be somewhat round and not molded together or stick shaped, they cant fly straight. I contacted hevi-shot about it and pretty much got called a liar and told that the shot were supposed to be like that. Hevi-shots customer service is terrible and obviously so is their quality control. I have bought longbeards for when i use up the remaining magblends i have b/c of this.

[BandedSpur]

The amount of pattern variation you are seeing is not that unusual. My rule of thumb when evaluating loads is to always shoot at least three patterns with any combination of choke and load and take the average. But I will only use a combination whose worst pattern is still suitable for the range I intend to shoot.

HS does seem to have more variability than some other HTL loads such as Fed HW and TSS handloads. But make no mistake, they exhibit variability as well as do lead loads. Every HS load, no matter how marked, is a "blend" of pellets of different sizes, which exacerbates the pattern variability seen.

And as noted, HS pellet shapes are all over the map with a large number of lopsided and misshaped pellets. Winch's discontinued XRHD, HW and TSS on the other hand are perfectly round. I have an early HS loading pamphlet (for waterfowl loads) where Environmetal spoke to the pellet shape issue. They did pattern tests and found that patterns only improved by 2% when using perfectly round HS pellets. The cost to make them so was considered prohibitive. At one time HS was relatively affordable and the argument made sense. But bulk HS now costs almost as much as bulk HW and TSS pellets, both of which have much higher tungsten content, are round, and provide far superior exterior ballistics.

[Oconeeguy]

Maybe your barrel "likes" just a tid-bit of fouling. Maybe if you cleaned it, then shot 3 more rounds it might show the same rise and decline in pellet count?? Maybe. Just thinking out loud.

[10gaugemag]

That is what I found with my Gold the other day. I had shot some patterns over the weekend and decided to do a deep clean afterwards.
 
Went out the other evening and the first shot didn't have any real core to the pattern, probably 3' overall and very inconsistent. Snaked the bore and second was a wee bit better but still pitiful. I decided to start shooting patterns and see where it went from there, 2nd and 3rd shots without any cleaning were where they had been over the weekend.

I am getting ready to do another deep clean and see if my findings hold true. Still working on a few combinations for hunting season.

Here are a few pics, forgot to rotate them so all of my shots appear to be to the right but were actually low for some reason, usually this gun shoots right on with the factory bead. Waiting on my Williams sights from Midway.
1st shot=60 10"
2nd shot=66 10"
3rd shot= 86 10"

[10gaugemag]

I also noticed  during my shooting over the weekend and my vertical height was on there would be shot in the 2" target spots I was using for aiming points, minimum of 2 in the spot and a maximum of 12 in the spot, shot ranges were 26 and 41 yards.

[mudhen]

I think it's the snowmen that make H-13 so effective....

It shouldn't work, but it does...


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[Birdyblaster]

I think it's the snowmen that make H-13 so effective....

It shouldn't work, but it does...


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I've never understood this either.  Prior to LBXR, lead always patterned much poorer than HTL because of shot deformation but you have grossly deformed pellets in all the Hevi shells and they seem to pattern really well for most people.  Makes no sense.